Readings for 10/21 - Amelia Barbosa

For this week’s blog post, I wanted to write about Aoko Matsuda’s Love Isn’t Easy When You’re the National Anthem. What attracted me to this short story was the themes of forced patriotism and individual agency through the lens of an unrequited love. I was intrigued at how the personification of a national anthem revealed that states and their symbols can try to demand compulsory participation, but cannot command authentic love or affection. In this story, we follow the perspective of a national anthem that develops a deep and unrequited obsession towards a student who continuously refuses to sing the song, growing only more infatuated after three years. Eventually, the student’s classmates and teacher realize he isn’t singing along, and he is singled out, chastised, and laughed at. This reminded me of how people have acted and may still act in real life when someone refuses to sing the national anthem or participate in compulsory displays of nationalism. This, in turn, causes the musically personified national anthem to feel a deep guilt and sadness, as it realizes that its forced presence causes people to lie to avoid public shame or embarrassment. I found this component particularly intriguing, as instead of conforming to the state’s expectations that everyone should participate in these displays, instead of feeling angry that the boy refuses to sing along, and instead of having an inflated ego as a result, the song displays its regret and admiration for the independence of those who resist, even as it yearns. This feels like a sort of ironic political statement about forced patriotism, like a comeback, saying “Even the national anthem itself doesn’t support forced patriotism”, spiting the states that enforce it. I feel that the mentions of students, teachers, soldiers, and athletes enforce this story as a political statement, as those are representations of different kinds of people who, in real life, have simply personally resisted or publicly made statements about what they think of these ‘mandatory’ displays of nationalism.